SPACE Cider: ‘Star Wars’ Actress Tribute

Raise a toast to the celebrated Cantina Scene, just in time for "Star Wars" Day.

By Alysia Gray Painter •Published May 3, 2016•Updated on May 4, 2016 at 10:21 pm

Ace Cider

Mention any physical room-like space, from a den to a bar to a kitchen to a bathroom, and see if a specific movie scene springs to mind.

No? Well, how about this: Meditate upon the word "cantina" for a minute.

Did you just think of the Cantina Scene from "Star Wars"? A movie moment so famous that describing it as the Cantina Scene — complete with a capital C and S — is now standard form in the fandom?

It's a legendary few minutes of film, thanks to the upbeat music, the first sightings of Han Solo and Chewbacca, the array of cosmic creatures, the scruffy Mos Eisley scoundrels, and the mysterious, beehive-rocking Tonnika sisters.

The Scene

Actress Angela House, who played one of the sisters in the 1977 blockbuster, was recently honored, with wit and flavor, by her husband Jeffrey, who founded ACE Craft Premium Cider in Sebastopol in 1983.

Mr. House introduced SPACE Bloody Orange in the fall of 2015 as a tribute to his wife's brief but memorable "Star Wars" cameo. True, many characters have been immortalized in action figures, but not every performer can say they had a beverage created in their honor, and by the "largest and oldest craft cider-maker on the West Coast," no less.

So to ask the eternal question: What is SPACE made from? Think hard apple cider, yes, with "a puree of fresh blood orange," lending the libation the brightness of an orange star.

Call it the perfect adult sip to raise on "Star Wars" Day — that's May 4, natch — or any time you're sitting down to another viewing of "Episode IV: A New Hope."

And, you're correct, that is Angela's photograph on the neck of the SPACE bottle, in her Tonnika-trendy garb. She did rock a beehive, as did her sister, you'll remember, though it was a beehive made of braids. Blue eye shadow, a unitard, and shiny boots completed the galactic garb.